


First Kiss

by FrenchWriter



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 14:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9445214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchWriter/pseuds/FrenchWriter
Summary: Emma and Regina connect through memories.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the result of a prompt I got on tumblr : Swan Queen first kiss, please! Doesn't matter when and where, but I'd like al little angst? 
> 
> Obviously, it turned into more angst than planned. I hope you will like it!
> 
> You can follow me on tumblr : @delphinefrench
> 
> Enjoy!

She'd ended it with a well-choreographed kick to the nuts. Emma still wasn't exactly sure what had made her do it, but that's how she'd responded to Hook's marriage proposal. Broadway style. Turned out the land of Untold stories didn't limit itself to literary classics as a dancing demon had forced them to share some unpleasant truths. In song. Regina's love life hadn't been spared either. An involuntary twist and shout sending alternate Robin back to the wish realm. The two women had grown closer, then. Weekly family dinners turned into daily ones, with Emma often staying late as they talked about things they couldn’t talk about when Henry was within earshot. Their talks usually light and full of banter, with an occasional venture into their pasts on those nights when wine had flown more freely - even if there were still so many lines their conversations wouldn't cross.

That Friday night Henry was monopolizing his mothers' attention – which had to be said wasn't exactly the challenge of the century. Amused glances were shared over his head until the teen tried to casually bring up his upcoming birthday. He was going to turn 14. Already. Regina glanced at Emma, concern in her eyes when she noticed the woman’s smile fading fast. An oblivious Henry chattered on about David's plan to make s’mores and invite practically all of Storybrooke. An outdoors party under the stars. Regina kept stealing glances at Emma. She noticed the woman's knuckles turning white around her glass. Emma looked up then, holding Regina's eyes a bit longer than usual. She pushed her glass away, looking caught as she played with the zipper of her leather jacket before turning her attention back to their son.

 

Once Henry made his way up to his room, they found themselves sitting next to each other on Regina’s couch, a fire roaring in the fireplace before them. The warm light dancing around the room, a flicker in their eyes.

“It happened by a campfire.” Emma’s voice rang loudly in the calm silence that had gone on for several minutes. “I'd just turned fourteen.” Regina turned her gaze to Emma, her feet up on the couch, a glass of wine cradled in her hands. Ready to hear the answer to a question she hadn't even voiced. It's what they did. Emma was staring at a faraway point on the floor, stuck in her own mind, gently twirling her glass of apple cider.

“We went camping for the weekend with my last foster family... My first time.” Regina just listened. Her ears, her heart, completely open for the woman next to her. “I had sort of fallen in love with them. They cared, they loved me. My foster mother had done a lot to try to get to know me. I had two little brothers and they looked up to me.” Her lip trembled slightly before it was bitten. “My …” She cleared her throat “my foster father…” Her voice broke slightly, her eyes glistening, lit by the fire. “My foster father was a kind man. I remember him teaching me things, survival skills, car stuff, that type of thing. And I was so happy that someone valued me enough to teach me things, to want me to better myself because there was something to better, you know?” She let out a sigh. “He… He made me feel like I was worth something, like I was worth more than the burden I was.”

Regina scooted closer, tentatively reaching for Emma, feeling relieved when she didn't pull away from her. She tenderly started rubbing the back of her hand in silent encouragement.

“Everyone was asleep but I, I was looking at the stars, listening to the fire crackling, the soft rustling of the wind in the trees. It was such a beautiful night… such a beautiful night…” she repeated in a voice that sounded far away. Locked away in memories but somehow anchored by Regina’s thumb stroking her hand ever so gently. “But then … then I felt a hand on my mouth and his face. Hovering above me. Looked right into my eyes. Finger to his lips. Next he... I was suffocating, wiggling to move away but I just couldn’t.” A lone tear traveled down Emma’s cheek. “Somehow all I could think about was how I didn’t want the others to wake up, I didn’t want them to see this, to know this. I didn’t want to... break this family.” The tears weren’t stopping, not on Emma’s face nor on Regina’s.

“He was so much older, I … He could have been … He -was- like a father…”

 

 The silence fell again, heavy. Suddenly, Regina’s slightly hoarse voice rose.

“I was eighteen.” Emma turned her face to the other woman, locking eyes. Regina’s eyes full of warmth, of sadness, of understanding never left Emma’s. “My mother made me marry Leopold. He wasn’t a cruel man; he was never violent with me. But he never cared. He was haunted by the memory of his dead wife, obsessed with his daughter. And I, I was a stranger. Intruding. Daniel had died a few days before and none of this felt real. It was all eerie, everything was amplified and yet bland at the same time. I don’t remember much of the ceremony, I don’t remember much of the ball, all I remember was my pain. But still to this day, I remember every second of that night. I remember the maids undressing me in this big cold room. I remember being left alone and Leopold coming in. Reeking and so old. He guided me to the bed. Never once talked to me. I was shaking, I was crying silently but he didn't even look at me. His gaze fixated just above my head. He forced my legs apart and took what he was entitled to.”

Emma’s jaw clenched, her eyes hardening, and Regina smiled slightly. “The anger will fade, Emma.”

“I killed him, you know.” Regina blinked. She knew killing. She didn't know the Savior did, too. Her face stayed open. Emma looked away again and stayed silent for a while. Neither of them spoke. Until Emma’s voice broke the silence again. “He was particularly violent one night… and I didn’t want him to hurt Henry…” Regina frowned but didn’t interrupt. Her hand tightened around Emma’s and her leg started bouncing nervously at the implications.

“I … I’m so sorry…” Emma wasn’t looking at Regina, guilt painted all over her face. She just knew Regina’s mother instincts had kicked in at the mention of their son. “I couldn’t have him know… I …” Regina closed her eyes and breathed in deeply.

“Not now Emma. It’s okay, not tonight.” She whispered softly, her grip on Emma loosening slowly. Emma nodded and continued. “We were alone. He tried and I didn't want… so he pushed me to the ground and started choking me. After he found my pregnancy test, there was booze suddenly. A lot. Guess it got kinda hard to sit in church knowing you knocked up your own kid." A humorless laugh filled the room.

"I guess he had more than way too much that night… I couldn’t let him kill me, kill my baby… I just stopped thinking. My instincts completely took over. I don't remember what happened next. It's just... gone. Then he’s lying on the ground next to me, gurgling, throat slit, blood all over me, all over the floor… I puked, the letter opener in my hand. I ran. I ran away…”

Emma had started shaking violently during her tale. Regina bent down to put her glass on the floor and slowly, gently, turned Emma to her and wrapped both her arms around her, holding her in a tight and safe embrace.

“You aren’t a murderer, Emma,” she whispered, “it was self-defense.” She whispered reassuringly in her ear. Emma broke out in ugly sobs, her fists clenching the back of Regina’s white blouse. And Regina just held her, softly rubbing her back and stroking her hair, rocking her back and forth. When the younger woman calmed down enough, Regina turned her face to look at her. “I didn’t realize exactly how right Henry had always been.”

Emma sniffled as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Her face frowned in question. “Saving him. Yourself. That makes you more of a Savior in my eyes than any monster or villain you could ever defeat. Yes, you killed, but it wasn’t out of darkness, it was to save lives. And Emma, that is not something to be ashamed of, it is not something to beat yourself up over. And I know what I’m talking about…” She sighed, keeping the other woman close.

"I killed Leopold … but I planned it all for weeks. I used Sydney’s infatuation for me and made him do it. Agraban vipers. Quick, not painless. I wasn’t even satisfied after that, I just kept wallowing in my pain for decades. Until Henry… until you.” She added in a whisper.

“You didn’t deserve all this pain, and fighting against... all of that. That in itself wasn’t evil.” Emma said softly, squeezing Regina’s hand that was back holding hers. Regina gave her a soft smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Emma stared back, still in each other’s arms. She started pulling away and Regina opened her hand. Emma ran hers through her hair. Shakily.

 

“Is this why we never … Does my touch remind you of...” Regina found it hard to express what she meant, her words stuck in her throat. She wouldn’t say it, but being denied Emma’s intimacy, when others had it so easily, hurt. And it would hurt even more if she was the reason that Emma’s past kept tormenting her.

Emma looked away, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “That night in the forest… When he held my hands above my head… he whispered ‘I saw you with that girl. Let me teach you, sweetie, what God wants a real woman to do…' He made it sound like he was doing me a favor. Keeping the dyke out of hell. Charity, really.”

Emma’s shoulders sagged as yet another confession left her lips.

“I … I just don’t want to drag you to hell with me...”

“Well, it’s a bit late for that, been there and back.” Regina responded with a little smirk. “He’s the one that’s going to hell Emma, not us.”

“At least not for that. Right?” The question meant as a joke betrayed so much insecurity.

Regina cupped her face gently and kissed her forehead with all the love she had before wrapping the younger woman in a protective embrace, leaning back on the couch. 


End file.
